Bard Graduate Center is devoted to the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions, publications, and events.

Zeev Weiss is the Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Trained in classical archaeology, he specializes in Roman and late antique art and architecture in the provinces of Syria-Palestine. His interests lie in various aspects of town planning, architectural design, mosaic art, synagogues, and Jewish art, as well as the evaluation of archaeological finds in light of the socio-cultural behavior of Jewish society and its dialogue with Graeco-Roman and Christian cultures. As director of the Sepphoris excavations on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1990, his work has contributed greatly to the understanding of the architectural development and character of the city throughout its history. Weiss is a Fulbright scholar and has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Princeton University, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, and Bard Graduate Center. He has written more than one hundred articles and four major volumes and co-edited seven books which include R. Talgam and Z. Weiss, The Mosaics in the House of Dionysos at Sepphoris: Excavated by E. M. Meyers, E. Netzer and C. L. Meyers, Qedem 44 (Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, 2004); The Sepphoris Synagogue: Deciphering an Ancient Message through Its Archaeological and Socio-Historical Contexts (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2005); Public Spectacles in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (Harvard University Press, 2014); Sepphoris: A Mosaic of Cultures [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 2021). He was the spring 2019 Leon Levy Professor of Jewish Material Culture at Bard Graduate Center.